Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Extremely useful information

I'm always a little irritated when people try to translate untranslatable proverbs and the like into another language, word-for-word. Way too awkward. "Neither fish nor meat." What? Probably the best approach is to say "There is a Russian (French, etc.) proverb meaning ......" That gets rather long-winded, though.

Perhaps there's a reason why the people from the translation agency never called me back about the job!

In the meantime, I'm going to break my own rule and translate a Russian proverb, just for fun.

"Назвался груздем-полезай в кузов."

Since you've called yourself a (particular kind of) mushroom, now climb into the basket.

See what I mean about awkward? The meaning relates to putting your words into action.

Ha ha! Annie, I would love to see you tell someone to "get in the basket!" :) There are a lot of Russian proverbs like that, which is why I think it is so absurd when they are translated word for word as if they will make sense in another language! And I'm sure our proverbs wouldn't translate very well, either. Although, of course, there is overlap, especially if they are from the Bible.

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About Me

Update on our family:

Our son David was born July '12 and Sophia was born August '16. We spend the school year in St. Pete and do some traveling in the summer.

If you want to read more about a missionary's life in St. Petersburg, you can browse past posts. Key posts are linked below (under construction since the Link List gadget is borken) and there are also labels and archives further down the sidebar.